Sri Lanka Tourism begins 2016 by investing on promotional campaign to shine in South Korea

Journalists from KBS South Korea meet the officials from SLTPB – Public Relation Division

Together with Korean Broadcasting Systems (KBS) and Sri Lanka mission for Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) the nation’s catalyst for tourism promotions, has taken the initiatives of promoting Destination Sri Lanka in the Republic of Korea by inviting a media team of one of the top rated travel programs called ‘Everywhere K’. 

SLTPB will be hosting this media team during their 10-day familiarisation tour program in Sri Lanka covering most of the highly regarded national attractions including heritage and cultural sites, beauty of nature in highlands, safari, whale watching and traditional local lifestyle in different parts of the island. The KBS media crew has planned to film a travel documentary about destination Sri Lanka which will be broadcast in the Republic of Korea. Members of Sri Lanka Inbound Tour Operators Association and The Hotel Association of Sri Lanka have also shown their fullest support to succeed with this promotional program.

With these promotional media familiarisation activities, SLTPB aims to get access to the strong South Korean outbound tourism market which numbered over 14 million tourist departures during the previous years. This is witnessing to the possibility of every one in four of the South Korean citizens having the financial capability of travelling abroad for their holiday. Identifying the potential strength of this South Korean outbound tourism sector, SLTPB is targeting to receive 20,000 tourist arrivals from South Korea during the year 2016 by surpassing last year’s 14,300 arrivals.

Over the recent years, the South Korean tourism sector (both inbound/outbound) has gained a significant growth despite the high competition received from neighbouring commercial giants such as Japan and China and growing doubtfulness of political  stability mainly due to the continued red alarming from North Korea. During the previous year, per capita income showed $ 23,000 making the outbound tourism sector much stronger and that creates a greater opportunity for regional nations including Sri Lanka.

A large number of holiday trips made by South Koreans, is mainly within the region making the top 12 destinations Asian nations except for United States. However, most of the elite South Korean frequent travellers still give their first choice to Europe as the possible holiday destination making around one million out of the total 14 million travellers. Sri Lanka will be seeing to position itself in the middle of potential high-end clientele from South Korea. As a colourful and compact tropical nation carrying a greater influence of Buddhist Culture Sri Lanka has all the comfort and relaxation of a paradise to offer the South Korean tourists.

Under the guidance of Minister for Tourism and Christian Affairs John Amarathunga and well-known industry veteran the present Chairman of SLTPB Paddy Withana, SLTPB has setup plans to release an aggressive promotional campaign in 2016, within the selected potential markets to compete with the potential competitors in the region. As part of the plans, the Public Relations division at SLTPB is planning to bring down high profile journalists from key markets under their Visiting Journalists Program (VJP) to increase global awareness on destination Sri Lanka.